Sex and the City Perfume is the #1 Most-Seized Counterfeit Item at Border Control

If I say "counterfeit products" what do you think of first? Chances are the first designers that spring to mind include names such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Coach, and Burberry. But can you guess what the #1 most-seized counterfeit product at the US border was in 2011?

Believe it or not, the most-seized counterfeit item by U.S. Customs & Border Protection in 2011 was fake "Sex and the City" perfume. Yes, fake "Sex and the City" perfume.

CBP’s Intellectual Property Rights “National Targeting and Analysis Group” in Los Angeles focused on 138 commercial shipments of perfume for possible trademark infringement and 52 of the shipments were seized for infringing on the “Sex and the City” trademark. The combined seized shipments contained more than 1 million bogus perfume items and were valued domestically at $8 million, Customs said. The same authentic items selling at retail would have been more than $45 million.

To be completely honest, the first thing I thought when reading this story was, "Wait, is there a 'Sex and the City' perfume? Like, a real one?"

Is there? I'm still not sure. Googling around turned up a slew of fake fragrances for sale on legit sites such as Amazon.com and Overstock.com. How do we know they're fake? Well, they're called "Sex in the City"—yeah, FYI counterfeit dudes, getting the name of the TV show wrong pretty much gives it away.

Are you surprised that fake "Sex and the City" fragrances were the most-seized counterfeit items at the border last year? Seriously, I though it'd be Vuitton bags or something like that...